Opera Mini 8 for iOS Helps Prevent Data Hogging

Opera Mini, for the iPhone and iPad, has a new flatter user intreface that fits in with Apple’s iOS 7.

Nathan Olivarez-Giles/The Wall Street Journal

If you’re constantly hitting your smartphone’s data cap, Opera Mini is a mobile browser that may help. For a while, Opera has been compressing websites on its servers by up to 90% before sending them through to your device. But the user interface is sorely out of date. That changes now, at least for iPhone and iPad owners.

Opera Mini 8, which is now available in the iOS App Store, brings a fresh, attractive look to the browser that’s styled after the flatter iOS 7. We got a sneak preview of the new browser and found that it is easier and more fun to use than its predecessor. For people who want to micromanage the compression of the websites they visit, there’s now a third “turbo” mode between fully compressed and not compressed at all.

Opera Mini offers three modes of data compression.

Nathan Olivarez-Giles/The Wall Street Journal

Where “Opera Mini” mode is maximum data compression, serving up lower resolution images and stripping out most extraneous items, “Opera Turbo” offers about half as much compression as Mini, while keeping videos, interactive elements and better looking images in place. If you turn it off, you get no compression, and the browser behaves much like Safari and Chrome.

You can select which data savings mode you’re using by tapping the red “O” in the center of the browser’s menu. This will also show you how much data you saved, and let you dig into the app’s settings—blocking pop-ups and cookies, clearing your passwords, deleting browsing history, etc.

Opera Mini 8, for the iPhone and iPad, can compress websites by 50% to 90% so you can consume less data.

Nathan Olivarez-Giles/The Wall Street Journal

I’ve been using Opera Mini 8 for more than a week now, and there’s one other feature I really like: a virtual joystick above the keyboard that lets you easily move your cursor in the search/URL bar. It’s a much easier way to edit a Web address than the long press over a text field that iOS uses across apps (though that option is still there if you want to use it, too).

Opera Mini also has a built-in news reader, called “Discover,” that I was much less thrilled with. Just swipe in left from the “Speed Dial” home screen and you’ll see news on topics such as business, entertainments, food, health, sports and technology. If you’re bored, you can usually find something to read, but there’s no customization beyond turning off and on topics. You can’t add your favorite blog or news site.

The older version of Opera Mini is still available free on Android. The Opera Mini 8 update for iOS, which originally had been scheduled for release Tuesday, is live. A spokesperson didn’t provide a reason for the delay.

Correction: Opera Mini 8 update for iOS that was expected to be released June 24 was made available June 26. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the update was released Tuesday.